Page 14 of Warrior Enchanted

For a while there it felt like we were being watched, that prickling sensation of eyes on the back of your neck. I searched the dark for the source but couldn’t find it. Shrugging it off as the curious interest of a forest critter. I still didn’t close my eyes, but with my lower hands clenched around some branches to anchor me, I did relax. Letting Meena’s soft sleeping sounds fill me with calmness and contentment.

Chapter 10

Meena

That tiny tent seemed far too fragile to be safe to sleep in. I didn’t think I’d manage much sleep at all, knowing that I was suspended over a huge drop down to the forest floor. As soon as I’d curled up under the blankets, dressed in fresh clothes, and with my belly filled with food and water. Yeah, it didn’t take me long after all.

I did spare this brief thought on Jakar, wondering what it would be like if I invited him in with me. If I asked him to keep me warm throughout the night. It shocked me when I didn’t hate the thought, not at all. Now that I’d spoken with him for more than two words, it was hard to put him back in that nice little box labeled alien creep. He wasn’t; he was just eager, and he seemed to actually like me. I mean, those compliments had been completely over the top, but they had been so freaking sincere. That wasn’t just being a charming flirt, that was deeper, and I couldn’t deny that.

When I woke up that morning, he was the first thing I thought of. Had he managed to sleep out there, balanced on a tree branch? Somehow, that didn’t seem so impossible for him. He was such an amazing climber that I had to believe his species had adapted for it. He still would have been more comfortable in the tent with me. The thought niggled at my mind for several minutes before I managed to shove it away.

The tent’s fabric material was see-through enough that I could see the shadows of leaves and branches dapple it, sunlight filtering down through the forest canopy. High up as we were, there was much more light than there would be down on the forest floor. It was kind of pretty and peaceful. I honestly kind of liked it, lying here, in a comfy hammock with warm blankets. Maybe it was the first time since my abduction that I felt a sense of peace like that.

“Are you awake, Meena?” Jakar asked with a low-pitched voice that wasn’t meant to carry far. He must have heard me move but he wasn’t sure if I was actually awake. I was touched because he didn’t want to wake me if I was still asleep. Very thoughtful. Since I was starting to feel the need to pee, I guess I had to admit to being awake. I was suddenly very concerned about how we’d accomplish that when we were fifty feet up in the air.

“I’m awake,” I mumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I clumsily freshened up a little with my tiny amount of supplies, which thankfully included the high-tech alien mouth cleaner. Just a little rinse with the fresh-tasting liquid and I was all done, one of the few things so far that I’d thoroughly appreciated about my leap into the future.

Pulling open the tabs of the tent, Jakar’s eagerly smiling face greeted me on the other side. He was casually balanced on his feet on the branch in front of me, not holding on to anything, just chilling like he wasn’t a powerful gust of air away from falling to his death. He clearly had no fear at all of heights and, on top of that, complete faith in his abilities as a climber.

“Hungry?” he asked, offering me a flat wide leaf with a selection of odd-looking nuts and berries on them. Okay, maybe they weren’t all that odd. I just couldn’t recognize them but they still had that general nut or berry look about them. Wasn’t Hina a xeno-botanist? I should ask her if that was normal, for alien plants to have so many similarities with our own.

“Are these safe to eat?” I asked dubiously, not wanting to throw this back in his face but not about to eat something that might be poison. He nodded his head eagerly up and down, spots on his face still a bright yellow, which meant I hadn’t offended him. His springy curls were flying every which way and I itched to comb them back over his head.

“I know each of these. They are safe to eat. They grow on many of the planets in the Kertinal Empire.” Reassured. I picked a juicy-looking red berry and popped it into my mouth, surprised when it was more like eating an orange than a blueberry. They were tasty, and the nuts were like most nuts but with a hint of something spicy, I liked all of this.

Without thought, I’d eaten nearly all of what he was holding out to me on the leaf before I realized I should maybe share. He started grinning as soon as I made the suggestion, his spots turning a yellow so intense they were practically glowing like little stars in his dark red face. It was pretty, and it meant I’d made him happy by asking. I was suddenly extremely grateful Hina had given me a crash course on Jakar’s moods. It was insanely pleasant not to have to second guess what he was feeling.

“This is all for you, but thank you,” he said, grinning at me in a boyish way. “I see you are wearing the knife I made you, good. Keep it close out here.” His eyes were like those of a great big cat, golden and yellow, with pupils shaped slightly differently. Did he see colors the same way I did?

I touched the knife strapped to my hip with the pretty leather holster and belt. In the light this morning, I’d seen that the leather had been hand-tooled; pretty patterns decorated the belt and sheath. One symbol was that of the fist over a heart, and now that it was light, I could see that pattern on more things around Jakar. As a patch on the front of his shirt, repeated around the leather cuffs on each of his wrists. He even had a patch with it on his backpack. It clearly meant something to him.

When I asked, he grinned again. I was starting to think that Jakar’s default setting was just plain happy; a bit like a golden retriever. I suspected that if I were to drop something, he actually happily would retrieve it for me from the forest floor. I hoped nobody ever took advantage of that eagerness to please. He was growing on me, and I didn’t want anyone to crush that eager spirit.

“It’s a symbol my brothers and I made to symbolize our clan. We made it for Thorin so he could have it on his Caratan chain. I put it on all my things to remind me that I have a family,” he explained, while stroking a thumb over the symbol carved into one of the bands on his wrist. His eyes were directed over my shoulder, a faraway look in them. He clearly remembered something, and it wasn’t good because I saw how his spots turned a deep blue, which represented sadness if I recalled correctly.

I reached out instinctively, pressing my hand to his chin, my thumb rubbing over the beginning stubble along his jaw. “Hey, come back to me. You’re safe here. You’re not alone.” I felt odd saying the kind of words that people had been saying to me over and over the past couple of days. I hadn’t believed them then, but now? Saying them to Jakar. It was like it cemented a little more in my own mind.

Yeah, I’d been kidnapped again, but Jakar hadn’t hesitated to come and rescue me. I really wasn’t alone. What incredible luck to be rescued so quickly. I couldn’t imagine what my life would have been like if I’d been stuck with that horrible gray asshole for more than just a single day.

Jakar jolted at my touch, his eyes flying to my face, and then his spots started to fade from blue into what was definitely pink. If I hadn’t known what that really meant, I might have thought that he was blushing, but I knew the truth. My skin prickled with awareness, my heart started to race, and my mouth went dry. He was turned on, just from that little touch, and for some reason, I didn’t pull my hand away.

“Thanks,” he said, one hand reaching over to pat my knee. He shook himself, which made me wince with worry that he’d tumble from the branch he was on. The moment was over just like that, leaving me a confused, slightly bothered mess. Jakar had turned away, busy with putting our supplies back in order.

Then he helped me down the tree for a quick bathroom trip, which was a little awkward because he didn’t want to go far to give me a semblance of privacy. The whole time, I could hear him pacing back and forth on the other side of the tree, clearly anxious about leaving me for a moment. As soon as I announced that I was done, he snatched me back up in his arms and rushed up the tree. He did mummer a warning that he was going to and I almost had to laugh at how well he’d heeded my angrily snapped ‘warn a girl’. Clearly, he wasn’t about to forget that one.

I wasn’t exactly happy about having to sit on my own against the tree while he dismantled the tent. Unlike him, I was definitely not confident about my tree-climbing abilities. I was pretty sure that the last tree I’d climbed had been when I was about seven.

A memorable event since I’d managed to stain and tear up my wedding finery in the process and I’d received a pretty hefty scolding for it. Even now that still annoyed me, it wasn’t like I didn’t have a million cousins who got married all the time, who cared that little me had made one such an event a tiny bit less perfect. Said cousin had laughed at my appearance. She hadn’t minded, so why was my mom upset about it?

Once he’d packed up everything and somehow fit it back into that backpack, I eyed him with a little trepidation. How could he possibly climb down this tree again with me and that giant weight on his back? Then I recalled that he’d done it last night, except he hadn’t climbed down. He’d somehow traveled through the canopy of trees with me and that thing to carry.

Tucking the backpack into a fork of branches, Jakar grinned at my worried face, stretching out his four impressive arms. “Let me get to the top of this tree to figure out where we need to go to get a good vantage point.” Then he was gone, just leaping up, grabbing some handhold high above me, and disappearing between the leaves.

You’d think his red skin meant he was extremely visible between all the green, but I lost track of him almost immediately. This felt more alone than any other moment since my kidnapping. I felt a little pit open up deep in my belly; I didn’t like this. Which was odd, considering that I’d been trying to get alone, to hide in my room, since the moment I’d arrived on the Vagabond.

I guess I liked having Jakar around more than I thought I did. He helped distract me from what I’d been through, and his optimism was helping me look to the future, rather than the past. If I dwelled on what I’d lost or on what I’d done, I’d sink into this hole I might never crawl out of. At least here in the woods, I felt too exposed, like someone was always watching, to really sink into my mind.

“Got it,” Jakar announced so suddenly that I screamed, nearly toppling backward from my precarious perch on my tree branch. Two hands hurriedly caught me by the shoulders, his eyes growing wide. He was hanging off a branch above my head like he was freaking Spiderman or something. Looking at me upside down, face close to mine, his spots turning pink again…